


TSA stands for Totally Smooth Agent

by Rena



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Failboat Bucky, M/M, Meet-Ugly, Pre!Serum Steve, TSA agent Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 02:07:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7958176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rena/pseuds/Rena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is a dedicated TSA agent. Steve just wants to get through the security screening. </p><p>Preferably without anyone assuming he's not old enough to travel alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TSA stands for Totally Smooth Agent

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this delightful story](http://soldieronbarnes.tumblr.com/post/149927597415/recalcitrantlycaffeinated-this-is-a-callout-post) that's floating around on tumblr. It was too good to pass up. 
> 
> Now, neither of them is underage (obviously), but Bucky assumes Steve is an unaccompanied minor, which really freaks him out later when he finds he's attracted to Steve (which one happens once he knows how old Steve actually is) so...keep that in mind?
> 
> Also, I know the rule is actually that kid under 12 are allowed to keep their shoes on, but I changed it to 16, because....if you think someone is under 12 and then you later find yourself attracted to them, that's too creepy for me to handle. So.

Steve looks at the endless line at the security screening stretching out in front of him and groans. He’s been waiting in line for twenty minutes, and still hasn’t made any significant progress towards reaching the scanners; everything is moving at snail pace. There isn’t really any good time to be at LaGuardia, because there’s no such thing as New York airports being not busy, but he probably should have picked a flight at a later hour, or very early in the morning, times when families with screaming children are less likely to travel, when fewer flights are departing.

He fucking hates security screenings. At least his mother has raised him to be paranoid about departure times and making sure to be there with plenty of time to spare, so he doesn’t have to worry about missing his flight.

Still, by the time he gets closer to the scanners, Steve is fidgeting, both from boredom and anxiety. He’s not great with crowds, especially loud ones that raise the static in his left ear to a nearly unbearable level, and LaGuardia only offers thirty minutes of free wifi, those pricks, as if thirty minutes got him anywhere.

His nervous bouncing attracts the attention of the TSA agent at the beginning of the screening, who’s instructing people which items to put in boxes and which clothes they can keep on and repeatedly going _No, Sir, I cannot allow you to take your water bottle with you, no, it doesn’t matter that it hasn’t been opened, it still counts as a liquid - no, you can’t just put it in the plastic bag, it contains more than 100 milliliters, I apologise but those are the rules - Sir, please calm down, or I will have to ask you to step aside and have you questioned…_

The TSA agent’s gaze snaps towards Steve despite his argument with the guy in front of him, and Steve freezes, forces his face into a blank but polite mask. He knows he doesn’t look threatening - he’s 5”2 and 90 pounds soaking wet, and he’s once been knocked to the ground by an eight year old girl - but he’s also keenly aware that nervous behaviour is a sure fire way to get you sent to a back room for additional questioning, which he is _not_ in the mood for.

Not that he would mind being tackled to the ground by this particular TSA agent. He’s young, probably around Steve’s age or only marginally older, with perfectly ruffled brown hair and piercing light eyes, and he definitely works out; Steve can tell by the way his biceps are straining the sleeves of his uniform, _Jesus Christ._ He could probably hold Steve up and fuck him against the wall for hours and -

“Hey there,” a kind, slightly gravelly voice startles him out of his train of thoughts. The TSA agent is looking at him with an expectant but, given the rush of people, surprisingly patient smile.

“Hi,” Steve squeaks, voice going up at least an octave thanks to the embarrassment, and stumbles forward to the conveyor belt, dumping his backpack in the box the agent is holding out to him.

“Where are you headed to today?”

“San Diego?” Steve replies, gathering his wits, and rooting around his backpack for his Ipad.

“Nice,” the man smiles. “That’s a long trip, though.” He scans the line behind Steve. “Are you travelling all by yourself?” For a second, Steve thinks he’s flirting. No TSA agent has ever made small talk with him. He has to be trying to find out if Steve is travelling alone, if he is single. Right? “No parents with you or anything?”

“Uh...no?” Steve says hesitantly, thrown by the line of questioning.

A tiny frown appears on the agent’s forehead. “Okay,” he says. “I’m just gonna walk you through how the security screening works, yeah? No need to be nervous.”

“...okay?” Steve blinks, increasingly confused.

“Cool!” The smile is back in full force, and it’s kind of blinding. “Now, we’re going to scan both your hand luggage and you - well, you can either walk through this scanner, or you can choose to be patted down, although I’d personally always go with the scanner. Still, if anything beeps, you'll have to be patted down afterwards. I’ll need you to put your hand luggage in these boxes; you aren’t allowed to put any sharp objects like knives or scissors in your hand luggage.”

“I don’t have any of those in there.”

“Good. Now, you’re also only allowed to take a certain amount of liquids in your hand luggage, no more than 100 milliliters per bottle and they have to be in a plastic, see-through -”

“Yeah,” Steve interrupts him, pulling his plastic zip-lock bag out of his backpack and waving it in front of the guy’s face. It only contains the saline solution he needs for his contact lenses anyway; it’s not like he needs a lot of liquids for a flights that's only a few hours long.

“You came well prepared.” The TSA agent nods approvingly as Steve dumps the bag in the next box, like it’s not a fucking requirement, like those rules haven’t been in place since before he started high school.

Behind Steve, the people are starting to grumble with how long he’s taking.

“Okay, if you have any large electronics, like a laptop or an Ipad, I’ll also have to put that into an extra box, simply because it may interfere with our scanners and distort the picture otherwise.”

Obediently, Steve drops his Ipad and his watch in another box and is about to shrug out of his jacket when the guy interrupts him again.

“Great,” he enthuses. “I don’t know if they explained this to you, or whether you’ve seen the posters, but if you’re under sixteen, you don’t have to take your shoes or your jacket off, you can just walk through the scanner and wait for your things to come out on the other side.”

 _Wait, what?_ Steve sputters out an indignant sound.

The TSA agent blithely talks over him. “See that tall guy over there in the yellow security vest? That’s Sam, he’s really nice, and you can ask him if you have any questions. And that small, red-headed woman by the end of the conveyor belt is called Natasha. She might look scary, but she’s actually a marshmallow, but don’t tell her I said that. Anyway, she’ll accompany you to your gate and make sure you get on the plane safely.”

Steve stares.

“Okay?” The TSA agent asks. The worried frown makes a reappearance, like he’s afraid he might have overwhelmed Steve with this barrage of information.

_Jesus Christ._

So much for flirting.

Steve clears his throat. “Sure,” he says, trying not to sound too put-out, feeling heat rising to his cheeks and hoping the resulting blush won’t be too prominent.

“Great.” The agent gives him another one of those reassuring, devastating smiles.

Steve wishes he could still enjoy it. Still, he can’t be mad. Everyone else and he would've snapped at them by now, but the guy is just so earnest and kind, it’d seem incredibly rude.

“Now, I need to see your ID and your ticket, and they’ll also have handed you a piece of paper at the check-in desk -”

Steve cuts him off by thrusting his passport and ticket at him, not trusting himself to speak.

The TSA agent scans the ticket quickly, nodding, and then flips open Steve’s passport to the page with his photo.

And freezes.

It’s kind of satisfying to Steve, watching all the colour drain from his face for a few seconds, before he turns violently red, choking on his own spit.

It’s _priceless_ , the expression on his face.

“I - you,” he stammers. “Nineteen ninety-one?”

“Yup,” Steve says blithely, tugging off his shoes and putting them in the box. “I’m just gonna -” he jerks his thumb at the scanner.

The TSA agent splutters. “Sure. I - yeah, sure.”

**∞**

As luck would have it, Steve finds himself at LaGuardia again two weeks after the disastrous security screening. He doesn’t usually travel a lot, but going to San Diego Comic Con had turned out to be a fantastic idea, business-wise. He’d sold a lot more copies of his comic books than he usually would, and famous Hollywood producer Tony fucking Stark had stumbled upon his humble stand and expressed interest in adapting his comic book to the silver screen.

Steve still has trouble processing it. But here he is, getting ready to fly to L.A. for some contract negotiations, and wondering when his life got out of control like this.  

Today, at least, his flight is one of the last to leave. He’s always prided himself on learning from past mistakes, and this time the line in front of the security check is almost blessedly empty compared to his last flight, and it doesn’t take him long to shuffle forward to the conveyor belt. He looks up from his phone when he hears a high-pitched, strangled sound. He catches sight of a large shadow ducking behind the scanning machine from the corner of his eye, but his attention is caught by the TSA agent closest to him, who’s laughing so hard that he has to double over.

“Everything okay?” he asks as he steps forward.

The guy clears his throat, and pulls himself together. He looks vaguely familiar, but Steve can’t quite place him. He’s almost as attractive as the agent he saw last time, tall and black and sporting a goatee and a winning smile that’s made more adorable by the gap between his front teeth.

“Yeah. No guardian with you today?” he asks.

Steve sighs deeply, and the agent cackles.

“I’m just pulling your leg, man. Liquids? Electronics? Shoes?”

Steve blinks. “You -”

“Remember you? Hell yeah I do. Barnes hasn’t shut up about you. Funniest story I’ve heard in a year,” the guy says. “Not gonna lie, I was hoping you’d come through here again soon before I forgot what your face looked like.”

 _That’s right_ , Steve thinks, it’s the other TSA agent that the guy tried to direct him to. Sam? “Yeah, I’m sure you’ve had a nice laugh about me,” Steve says sullenly, dumping his belongings into the boxes with perhaps a little more force than necessary.

“About you? Hell no. We’ve been laughing at _him_ , mostly because he can’t stop whining about the cute guy he completely blew his chances with.” He jerks his head towards the scanners, ignoring the protesting noise from behind it. “Put him out of his misery, will ya? As funny as it was in the beginning, I don’t think I can take this much longer. If I have to endure another day of him being a drama queen, I’mma punch him in the face.”

“He doesn’t seem too eager to talk to me,” Steve comments drily, loud enough that Barnes should hear it, even if he’s taken refuge behind the other agent looking at the scans.

“Are you kidding me?” Sam says. “Of course Bucky wants to talk to you. He’s just battling with his own mortification, and trying to get over the fact that you gave him the most confusing and guilty boner of his life.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh my God,” the cute TSA agent - _Bucky? What kind of name is Bucky?_ \- pops up from behind the scanner, face again bright red.  “I’m not a creep, I promise.”

“Uh -”

“How ‘bout you go through the scanner, and then you two can talk?” Sam suggests. “You have plenty of time before your gate opens, and Barnes is due to take his break anyway. Though if something beeps I’m sure he’d be very happy to pat you down.”

When Steve goes to gather his stuff - no beeping or patting down involved, he thinks almost sadly - Bucky is indeed waiting for him, wringing his hands nervously.

“I’m Bucky.”

“Steve.”

“I know,” Bucky says.

Right. He’d seen Steve’s name on his passport and ticket.

Two weeks ago.

And he’d _remembered._

Steve’s pretty sure most people he went to high school with for four years didn’t know his name.

An awkward silence stretches between them.

“I promise I’m not a pedophile!” Bucky bursts out suddenly.

“I...didn’t think you were?” Steve ventures.

“But I thought you were a minor,” Bucky wails. “And now Sam told you I think you’re cute and you’re gonna think - I promise I totally didn’t check you out when I thought you were that young, that’s just creepy, I have a sister that age and just….no.” He shudders dramatically.

“Okay,” Steve says carefully. “But I’m not sixteen. I’m twenty-five.”

“I _know_. And I swear I didn’t think about you like that before I knew how old you were. But then I saw your ID, and you were so indignant but still so nice about it, and you are really beautiful when you blush and then I thought - I’m gonna stop talking now.”

“It’s not the first time someone thought I was younger than I am.” Steve shrugs. “Usually I’d get frustrated, but you were really sweet and thoughtful? I’d have appreciated it, if, well, if I’d actually been an unaccompanied minor.”

“Which you aren’t.”

“Which I am not,” Steve confirms. “So...guilty boner?”

“The guiltiest,” Bucky sighs. “Like, I know you’re only one year younger than me, but you still-”

“Look very young,” Steve finishes for him. “Too young for you to be comfortable with thinking about going out with me. Or - well. You know.”

“Pal,” Bucky says, “all I’ve been thinking about for the past two weeks was fantasies of how I’d run into you again and ask you out.”

“Really?” Steve asks, taken aback. “So it’s not too...weird?”

Bucky mulls it over for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s pretty weird. But I’d like to give it a try, if you don’t think it’s too creepy. That I’m too creepy.”

“If anything, the fact that you are so freaked out about this tells me you’re not a creep.”

“That’s - thanks. Hold on.” He pulls a piece of paper and a pen out of his back pocket and scribbles a series of numbers on it before handing it to Steve. “If you ever wanna call. I promise I won’t be offended if you don’t. Your choice.”

Steve grins, folds the piece of paper and carefully stores it in his wallet. “I’ll call when I’m at the gate,” he promises. “And when I’ve touched down. That’s the policy, right? Making sure you’re not unattended anywhere in the airport where you could roam free and get lost?”

“Oh my God,” Bucky breathes, a delighted grin spreading over his face. “You’re an asshole.”

“Well, yeah.” Steve shrugs, and shoulders his backpack when he hears his flight being called. “I’ll see you when I get back?”

“You bet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me [on tumblr](http://soldieronbarnes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
